Dolly Parton, Country Music Icon and ‘Jolene’ Songwriter, Dies At 80

Dolly Parton, an entertainer who began her career as a coal miner’s daughter and became a country music legend, died Tuesday at age 80.

Parton passed away peacefully on August 25 in Nashville. The cause of death has not been revealed yet.

The Parton family confirmed the news in a statement released via a video on her official social media page, which was shared by her nephew Bryan Seaver, acting on their behalf. Seaver, Parton’s head of security for many years, reportedly posted the news on Instagram, as TMZ reported when it first broke the story.

The singer had been experiencing various health issues that she discussed openly with the media. In her final interview conducted just before passing away, she mentioned her health troubles, stating that she had had “hard times with my health,” because she had been too busy taking care of her husband during his final days, as cited by People and Guitar Player.

From Locust Ridge to the Ryman

Born on January 19, 1946, in Sevierville, Tennessee, Parton was the fourth of 12 kids in a low-income family that lacked electricity and running water in their Great Smoky Mountains home. Her father settled his bill with the doctor who delivered her with a sack of cornmeal; she would mention the story without any shame many years later.

She was already singing on Knoxville radio and TV in her early teens. After graduating from high school, she moved to Nashville the day after. Parton gained popularity by joining “The Porter Wagoner Show” in 1967. Her departure from the show in 1974 resulted in the “I Will Always Love You” song, her farewell to Wagoner, that eventually became the most popular song ever written by a woman.

Whitney Houston’s 1992 recording of the ballad for “The Bodyguard” spent 14 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and brought her lots of money, since she wrote it herself. She often said that she invested the royalties in Black-owned businesses in Nashville.

A catalog and an empire

According to her official website, Parton wrote around 3,000 songs. Some of her most popular songs include “Jolene,” “Coat of Many Colors,” “9 to 5,” and “Here You Come Again.” Her career spanned more than 60 years, TMZ reported.

Also, the singer successfully worked in films, receiving an Oscar nomination for the “9 to 5” theme song and starring in “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” and “Steel Magnolias.” In 1986, she opened Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, which became the state’s number-one visited ticketed attraction and one of the largest employers of the county where she was born.

Parton received 11 Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1999 and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2022. Initially, she tried to decline the latter award, saying she was not a true rocker, but yielded under public pressure and released “Rockstar,” her duet album, which Variety reports was her last. Also, she received the Kennedy Center Honors and the National Medal of Arts.

Her Imagination Library, founded in 1995 in memory of her illiterate father, delivered over 200 million free books for children in the USA, Canada, the UK, Ireland and Australia. In 2020, she donated $1 million to Vanderbilt University to support research that helped develop the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.

Final years

Her husband of 58 years, Carl Thomas Dean, passed away on March 3, 2025, aged 82. He was a private asphalt-paving contractor whom she met outside a Nashville laundromat in 1964. She dedicated her “If You Hadn’t Been There” song to him.

His death impacted her life. Parton postponed her six-show Las Vegas residency at Caesars Palace, scheduled for December 2025, saying doctors recommended several procedures. At the opening of Dollywood season in March, she told fans she was “worn down and worn out” from grieving.

Nevertheless, she was still working. Parton visited performances of “Dolly: An Original Musical,” which had a Nashville tryout in July and August, and also created “Dolly Parton’s Threads: My Songs in Symphony,” which is a tour performance opening in Nashville in March.

In her last public statements, she claimed that she was still recovering and tried to complete all her projects.

Parton is survived by her siblings, including her sister and fellow singer Stella Parton, and many nieces and nephews; she is predeceased by her husband, her parents, Avie Lee and Robert Lee Parton, and four brothers, the last of whom, Coy “Denver” Parton, died in July.

The funeral arrangements have not yet been announced.